A
new report released by the American Lung Association reveals that the
oil industry lobby, the biggest corporate lobby in California, has spent
$45.4 million in the state since 2009.

The
report was unveiled at a crucial time in California environmental
politics - just a couple of weeks after Governor Jerry Brown signed
Senate Bill 4, the green light to fracking bill, and less than 10 months
after a network of so-called "marine protected areas" created under the
"leadership" of a big oil industry lobbyist and other corporate
operatives was completed on the California coast.

"As
a visitor to this blog, you know that the American Lung Association in
California Center for Tobacco Policy and Organizing produces compelling
reports on Tobacco Money in Politics to highlight the money the tobacco
industry spends lobbying state officials," according to William Barrett .
"Just as tobacco companies pour millions into lobbying and public
relations to deflect attention away from the dangerous health impacts of
smoking, oil companies are investing a fortune on lobbying to undermine
clean air policies and protect the market for their polluting
products."

Through
June of 2013, Big Oil has spent over $5 million on lobbying California
policy-makers - and that doesn’t include donations to political
campaigns, according to Barrett.

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA), the lobbying organization
for California oil interests headed by Catherine Reheis-Boyd, the former
chair of the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task Force
for the South Coast, has spent over $20 million since 2009.

WSPA
is again leading all spending to influence California politics. The
association spent the most of any organization in first six months of
2013, $2,308,789.95, to lobby legislators and other state officials,
according to documents filed with the California Secretary of State.

Chevron,
the state's largest and wealthiest corporation, is not far behind,
spending over $1.3 million in the first six months of 2013. The company
is infamous for its environmentally destructive practices in California
and throughout the world.

The
San Ramon-based company, falsely portrayed in its omnipresent ads as an
"environmentally friendly" company, is responsible for one of the
largest environmental disasters in history - the deliberate dumping of a
massive amount of oil pollution in the Ecuadorean Amazon. Chevron was
found guilty in February 2011 and ordered to pay $18 billion to clean
up, according to the Rainforest Action Network. The judgment was upheld
by an appeals court in January 2012.

"Given
the major oil lobbying push in the Capitol at the end of the
legislative session in early September, it will not be a surprise if
this trend holds," Barrett forecasted.

"Imagine
spending $20 per minute, every day, every week, every month for over
four years," added Barrett. "Sounds impossible doesn’t it? Well,
California’s oil industry lobbyists in Sacramento have done just that.
Since 2009, oil lobbyists have spent $45 million to keep us addicted to
fossil fuels and maintain a monopoly over our transportation choices.
Sound familiar?"

The
blog closes with a quote by the association's late President and CEO,
Jane Warner: "Much like tobacco companies want to keep smokers dependent
on their deadly product, the oil industry wants to keep California
dependent on oil – an expensive, dirty and limited resource that damages
health."

While
this report is invaluable in exposing the oil industry's monetary
influence in California politics, the association fails to mention one
of the largest, most explosive environmental scandals of the past decade
- the key leadership role that, Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the
Western States Petroleum Association, played in creating fake "marine
protected areas" in California.

Big Oil's Big Grip on California Politics

A
media investigation by the Associated Press and truthout.org recently
revealed that oil companies are conducting fracking (hydraulic
fracturing) operations in federal waters in the fish and wildlife-rich
Santa Barbara Channel, where a 1969 oil spill polluted coastal waters
and beaches with millions of gallons of oil. "Federal officials cannot
even say how often fracking has happened in California’s offshore
waters," a news release from the Center for Biological Diversity said.

The
recent relevation that California's coastal waters are being “fracked”
takes place in the larger context of the oil industry's enormous
influence on California environmental processes. The oil industry, now
the most powerful corporate lobby in Sacramento, exceeds corporate
agribusiness, the computer and software industry, the film and
television industry, the aerospace industry and other major corporate
players in California politics in the power that it wields.

The
association now has enormous influence over both state and federal
regulators. Oil and gas companies spend more than $100 million a year to
buy access to lawmakers in Washington and Sacramento, according to Stop
Fooling California, an online and social media public education and
awareness campaign that highlights oil companies’ efforts to mislead and
confuse Californians.

Robert
Gammon, East Bay Express reporter, revealed that before Governor Jerry
Brown signed Senator Fran Pavley's Senate Bill 4, Brown accepted at
least $2.49 million in financial donations over the past several years
from oil and natural gas interests, according to public records on file
with the Secretary of State's Office and the California Fair Political
Practices Commission.

"Of
the total, $770,000 went to Brown's two Oakland charter schools — the
Oakland School for the Arts and the Oakland Military Institute," said
Gammon "The other $1.72 million went to his statewide political
campaigns for attorney general and governor, along with his Proposition
30 ballot-measure campaign last year."

While
feigning opposition to the bill even after oil industry-friendly
amendments effectively eviscerated the already weak legislation,
Reheis-Boyd issued a statement on September 20, the day the Brown signed
SB 4, gloating about how the legislation will clear the path to
expanding the environmentally destructive oil extraction process in
California.

“While
SB 4’s requirements went significantly farther than the petroleum
industry felt was necessary, we now have an environmental platform on
which California can look toward the opportunity to responsibly develop
the enormous potential energy resource contained in the Monterey Shale
formation,” said Reheis-Boyd.

Cover-up of oil lobbyist's role in marine 'protection' continues

The
oil industry not only exerts influence by direct contributions to
political campaigns, but by getting its lobbyists and representatives on
key panels like the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Blue Ribbon Task
Force.

Inexplicably,
reporters from the mainstream media and most of the "alternative"
media, in their reporting on fracking, the oil industry and the network
of so-called "marine protected areas" created under the MLPA Initiative,
have failed to mention a crucial component of the industry's influence
on California politics - how the head oil industry lobbyist, Catherine
Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association,
oversaw what passes for "marine protection" in California.

I'm
puzzled as to why these reporters omit any reference to one of the
biggest environmental scandals of the past decade, one that has a direct
bearing on the fracking of California - the fact that Reheis-Boyd
served as chair of the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force to create alleged
"marine protected areas" in Southern California. She also served on the
North Coast, North Central Coast and Central Coast task forces from 2004
to 2011, from the beginning of the process to the end of the process.

Why
don't these publications acknowledge that Reheis-Boyd served as a state
official in a process that created fake "marine protected areas" that
fail to protect the ocean from fracking, oil drilling, pollution, wind
and wave energy projects and all human impacts on the ocean other than
fishing and gathering? If this isn’t a major conflict of interest, I
don’t know what is!

State
officials and representatives of corporate "environmental" NGOs
embraced the leadership of Reheis-Boyd and other corporate operatives
who served on the MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Forces to create “marine
protected areas” that fail to actually protect the ocean. By backing her
leadership as a "marine guardian," they helped to increase the
influence of the Western States Petroleum Association and the oil
industry.

The
California Coastal Commission and other state officials acted
"surprised" when FOIA documents revealed that Southern California
coastal waters have been fracked at least 12 times - after the
proverbial fox was guarding the hen house since 2004. Well, independent
investigative reporters like David Gurney and myself warned, again and
again, that this would happen when an oil industry lobbyist was in
charge of marine "protection."

Why
are both the mainstream media and much of the "alternative" media so
afraid to even mention one of the biggest environmental
conflict-of-interest scandals of the past decade in California?
Something is very, very wrong here.

December 5, 2016 | Week of December 5, 2016 All Week Holiday Shop Elk Grove 12/05/16 Special Meeting: Committee for the Arts ...

Archives

Corrections

10/5 - Story posted 10/4/16 Woman Robbed at Gunpoint at Elk Grove Shopping Center By Masked Suspect Originally reported the crime on West Stockton Boulevard. The crime happened on East Stockton Boulevard.